James Delahunty
30 Nov 2005 16:04
Yes, you read the headline correctly! A Dutch company has developed the worlds first media center that gets its content from P2P networks. The hardware, called Lamabox, gets content from P2P networks such as eDonkey, Fasttrack (Kazaa), Gnutella, Overnet and also has BitTorrent support. The developers have said that they know the product is "somewhat controversial" but are relying on a past court case to protect them from any legal troubles.
The court case actually was the Supreme Court's ruling on Kazaa (when it was Netherlands-based). The ruling only classifies the uploading of copyrighted material as illegal. However, the company has set aside some money for legal defense just in case. The hardware was presented at a consumer trade show in Utrecht last week. It is basically a hard disk drive that plugs into your TV that has search and download support for the P2P networks.
The company said it has had a lot of interest particularly from foreign countries. Supply is limited however, as each of these devices is handmade. I think the question of whether or not this company will face legal action from the entertainment industry should be changed to "when" it will.
Source:
The Register